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with, or perhaps ‘through’, their inner hearts (fu’ad—and hence a<br />
fortiori ‘through’ their cores [lubb]). God says:<br />
So He revealed to His servant what he revealed. / The inner<br />
heart (fu’ad) did not deny what he saw./ …. / Vision<br />
(basar) did not swerve, nor did it go beyond [the bounds]. /<br />
Verily he saw some of the greatest signs of his Lord. (<strong>Al</strong>-Najm,<br />
53:10–11; 17–18)<br />
This is to say then that Ihsan is not only a state of impeccable<br />
virtue, but it also involves spiritual vision through the inner hearts<br />
(fu’ad, pl. af ’ida) and cores (lubb, pl. albab) of human beings.<br />
(2) From Iman to Ihsan<br />
How does faith in God (Iman) be<strong>com</strong>e excellence / virtue (Ihsan)?<br />
That is to say, how is the transition—or rather the spiritual transformation—from<br />
faith to impeccable virtue made? We have just seen<br />
that Ihsan is not only a state of impeccable virtue, but that it also<br />
involves spiritual vision through the inner hearts (fu’ad, pl. af ’ida)<br />
and cores (lubb, pl. albab) of human beings. God describes this<br />
spiritual transformation in the following beautiful Hadith Qudsi (i.e.<br />
a hadith where God Himself speaks on the tongue of the Prophet<br />
; it is known as ‘Hadith al-Nawafil’):<br />
“Whosoever is hostile to one of My friends (wali)—I declare<br />
war upon them. And nothing is more beloved to Me, as a means<br />
for My servant (‘abd) to draw near unto Me, than the worship<br />
which I have made binding upon him; and My servant ceases<br />
not to draw near unto Me with added voluntary devotions<br />
(nawafil) of his own free will until I love him; and when I<br />
love him I am the Hearing wherewith he hears and the Sight<br />
wherewith he sees and the Hand wherewith he grasps and the<br />
Foot whereon he walks. And if he asks Me, I will certainly<br />
give him; and if he seeks protection in Me, I will most certainly<br />
protect him. And I hesitate in nothing that I do so much as<br />
I hesitate in taking the believer’s soul: he hates to die, and I<br />
37
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